Displace Yourself: It’s the Only Viable Career Option

Displace Yourself: It’s the Only Viable Career Option

If you’re not thinking about displacing yourself, you should be. We’re all in the process of either getting fired or firing the client we’re working with. Grabbing career displacement by the horns is the only logical option. We must learn to displace ourselves, choosing to find better, more ideal situations for our skills and our interests, before the decision is made for us.

Otherwise, we’ll find ourselves being called into a meeting where the parties sitting across the table will dictate the terms of your departure.

“Do you have a minute, Ronell?”

Those six words still ring in my ears, even today, years later. It was Dec. 2, and I’d just sat down at my desk, ready to get started after downing breakfast in the lunchroom.

It was a tumultuous time at the company, which had, exactly one month earlier, been purged by ESPN and sold to a trio of wealthy businessmen.

As I stood up from my desk and entered my senior director’s office, I broke the threshold to see the administrative vice president seated in the corner, a sure sign of what was ahead, but even then I was unaware, as if in a dream state.

Those are the words I remember being said. Not because they hurt. They didn’t.

I was only shocked at the timing, but I knew business-to-business publishing wasn’t in line with the new owners’ goals.

In those few short minutes, my emotions went from shock (“Is what I’m thinking of about to happen?”) to surprise (“This is happening now?”) to calm (“It’s over. I’m fine with it.”).

“You will? Really?”

When given a choice of staying on through the end of the year or leaving right away, I chose to stay and finish the magazine I was working on. Apparently, my agreeing to do so surprised at least one person in the room.

Truthfully, I didn’t stay because I was so committed to the job that I’d started; tt was more that I felt it was the right thing for me to do. Besides, I had zero ill will, no hard feelings and I wanted to control what I could control, which included getting my personal images off the computer, packing my own belongings and tying up any loose ends I might have left dangling.

The hours immediately after receiving the news were some of the most enlightening of my life, at least as regards my career.

Up to that point, I could not get clarity on what my next steps should be. I had always seen the position as a five-year job, and I was six months beyond that. But the harder I tried to focus on what I wanted to do next, the more my mind locked onto what I didn’t want to do. However, as I left the office the morning after getting the news, I instantaneously had more career clarity than at any point in my life.

Being untethered means being (mentally) unencumbered.

I’ve always functioned best when I am closed off, unconnected to the outside world, whether in a closed room, an airplane or alone in a boat. The freedom I felt upon leaving the office that day was as liberating as it was disconcerting.

I knew I was closer to my next career move, and I knew my current job wouldn’t “stand” in the way of whatever decision I was to make. Also, being disconnected meant my career path didn’t have to follow any presorted trajectory.

I was free, in every sense of the word.

Career displacement allows you to focus on the possible, not just the practical.

In the days leading up to my firing, my boss had asked me what additional roles I saw for myself at the new company. In retrospect, it was his way of saying “Your job is going away. Is there anything else you’d like to do for the new company?”

Hard as I tried, I couldn’t think of anything. Everything I wanted to do seemingly didn’t fit with the direction of the company, or my being a part of it. I knew I wanted out.

The news unburdened me, in a sense, allowing me to think of possibilities outside the company or the industry. Everything was on the table and in a way I could never before envision.

Losing your sense of belonging doesn’t mean you have to lose yourself.

Being raised the youngest of three kids, I’ve always been somewhat of a free spirit, in that I’ve never thought of myself as having to be a member of the club, so to speak. In a weird way, being fired gave me a sense of pride.

Even though I didn’t initiate the exodus, inwardly the action manifested itself as “Unlike everyone else here, my options are wide open, and I cannot allow the promise of a job to keep me from taking advantage of the active management of my career.”

The biggest takeaway I gleaned from this experience was the need to displace yourself before someone else does it for you.

This is true whether you work for yourself or you work inside another company. You should always be looking for ways to create the independent future you deem most important. That requires a willingness to make your own moves, even if your vision for the future is not immediately crystal clear.

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